First Digits - Ivars Peterson (MathTrek)
Take a look at a newspaper page listing stock market prices. You might think that each of the numbers from 1 to 9 would occur equally often among the first digits of all the listed prices. Instead, however, you're very likely to find that numbers starting
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FiveThirtyEight - Nate Silver, Editor in Chief
Quantitative features, interactives, and "datalabs" on politics, economics, sports, and other topics by Silver, Carl Bialik, and others. Science posts have included "How Statisticians Could Help Find That Missing Plane," "Toilet Seat Covers: To Use or
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Fixed Point Theory on the Web - M. A. Khamsi
Fixed Point Theory and Applications sites; Mailing List; Conferences: previous and forthcoming; books on fixed point theory; other interesting sites on the Web; bibliography database; abstracts; papers on fixed point theory; general information.
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Flight of the Bumblebee - Ivars Peterson (MathLand)
How did proving that a bumblebee can't fly originate? Who started the story? It apparently first surfaced in Germany in the 1930s, and the story was about a prominent Swiss aerodynamicist. One evening, the researcher happened to be talking to a biologist
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Focus on Student Practice - Suzanne Alejandre
Article about how students worked on the Problem of the Week (PoW) "Wooden Legs" in a way that developed the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Mathematical Practice of "making sense of problems and persevering in solving them." This article, originally
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Fold Everything - National Geographic Society
See how paperfolding inspires the design of aircraft, stent grafts, and the packaging and transportation of telescope lenses in this overview of the history and future of origami. With downloadable instructions for folding a peacock, as well as an online
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Folding Maps - Ivars Peterson (MathTrek)
Erik D. Demaine of the computer science department at the University of Waterloo
in Ontario and his coworkers have developed an efficient method for recognizing when a creased sheet is foldable into a flat package (results are reported in an unpublished
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Fractal Clouds - Robert F. Cahalan
Information on the fantastic variety of cloud forms and structures, and their implications for climate. Albedo (abstract of a short technical paper for downloading); authors of papers on fractal clouds; cloud types and associated geometry, processes,
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Fractions, Cycles, and Time - Ivars Peterson (MathTrek)
In ancient times, people had to confront awkward numbers in astronomical contexts when they compared the motions of the sun and moon. The unfailing, daily passages of the sun across the sky and the corresponding movements of the stars at night represented
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Fragments of the Past - Ivars Peterson (MathLand)
Historians of mathematics now generally agree that scholars in China, India, and the Islamic world produced remarkably sophisticated mathematics between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries. However, most would probably still argue that Europeans in
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Frank Garvan
Frank Garvan is a mathematics professor at the University of Florida. His combinatorics research articles are available for download in PostScript and .dvi formats. A Maple package for q-series may also be downloaded. One may also find the syllabi
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Frederic Chyzak
Frederic Chyzak researches combinatorics and computer algebra, specifically holonomic functions. His thesis and other articles are available as abstracts and as PostScript files. Slides for a series of talks on holonomic functions and computer algebra
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From Counting to Writing - Ivars Peterson (MathLand)
Abstract numbers are the product of a long cultural evolution. They also apparently played a crucial role in the development of writing in the Middle East. Indeed, numbers came before letters, contends archaeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat of the University
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From Number to Formula - Ivars Peterson (MathLand)
Given the number 1.6180339887, how can you find out whether this particular number is special in some way, as the output of a specific formula or the value of a familiar mathematical function? Do you have a favorite number: Pi, the golden ratio, e (Napier's
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Frustration Solitaire - Doyle, Grinstead, Snell
A paper on the rank-derangement problem, which asks for the number of permutations of a deck of cards such that each card is replaced by a card of a different rank, and which arises when computing the probability of winning the game of 'frustration solitaire'.
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Fun and Games in Nevada - Ivars Peterson (Mathland)
...in the hotel's casino, the sights and sounds were... the glare of neon lights, the jangle of coins erupting from slot machines, the clink of chips at blackjack tables, and the mutter of avid gamblers testing their luck. It was the middle of April,
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Future of Leap Seconds - Steve Allen
Allen, an astronomer, discusses leap years, leap seconds -- and how to avoid their use when redefining Coordinated Universal Time (UTC): three pictures that show the situation; elapsed time (JavaScript that shows POSIX's inability to provide an interface
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